Shades Of Elysium

It’s time to talk about furries. Now, don’t touch that dial, because shit’s about to get real hot in here. Shades of Elysium is a game made by furries, for furries, but my god, I would recommend that anyone and everyone try this game. That is, if you’re an adult and you like fapping. Personally, I’m not a fan of the whole anthropomorphic animals' thing in porn, but given how amazing this game is shaping up to be, I have to give them props for all of their progress. This game is really shooting for the stars, and it has the potential to be the greatest porn game of all time, if the developers play their cards right. But one thing is certain; when they finish this game, it will definitely be the best furry porn game ever made.

Unreal Aspirations

Most high-quality porn games that I have played were made in shitty indie game engines that seem to exist to push the limits of what you can get away with on an old computer. They’re mostly 2D, sometimes made entirely in text, and they really push their luck. They get away with it mostly through quality writing.

Now, imagine if you had a video game with quality writing, proper RPG elements, an open world, and modern 3D graphics built entirely in the most recent edition of the Unreal engine. Well, that’s Shades of Elysium, and that’s also exactly why my mind is blown. This game uses Unreal to bring you the latest and greatest in graphical fidelity novelties, including but not limited to actual fur rendering.

Yes, you heard me right. Individual hairs on fur are now rendered on the fly in this dingy ass indie porn game that also happens to be completely open world and encouraging exploration. If you had told me that this kind of game was in the works before I even got a chance to see it, I would not have believed you. It sounds too good to be true, but I tried the demo, and it’s everything you’re currently reading about and more. This game is almost completely unbelievable.

World Design

If the recent Cats movie taught me anything, it is that even if we were anthropomorphic animals, we’d still live in a society that looks exactly like the one we have today, down to the architecture. You would think that human-like animals would have some sort of love and appreciation for climbing shit vertically and generally dicking around. Nope. It turns out that furry animals that stand upright prefer to just walk into buildings casually in the exact same way that humans do. This apparently explains why their cities look exactly like ours and why they play the exact same type of pool as we do. I don’t understand how an animal can even hold a pool cue, even with opposable thumbs, but to each his own.

Now that the jokes are out of the way, let me just say that even though this world barely makes any sense, it’s absolutely gorgeous. I mean, you’d think that they’d spend all of their time on the fur and then cut corners around the boring shit. Nope. They literally went out of their way to make every single asset in this game feel like a part of the world. Bars feel like actual bars. They’re immersive. The people inside them feel alive. They’re casually going about their business. None of this feels staged. These are the kinds of accomplishments that other porn game developers haven’t reached yet, even in two dimensions. Usually, NPCs just feel very dead and sterile. Yeah, they wanna bang, but they’re not exactly showing their excitement. Even in its alpha stage, this game gives you the vibe of an actual living city.

Otherworldly Design

One of the wonderful aspects of this game is that it takes place in our world, but it’s super mixed with magical elements. There are all kinds of weird shit happening around town, and you are going to have to figure out why. Your character is sort of thrust into the action, without intent, and once you get a taste of some of the mystery, you’re going to be hooked. This is one of the many reasons why I believe that non-furries are going to enjoy this game. Sure, you have to get around the fact that you will be penetrating catgirls or whatever, but the story will pull you forward. It’s that interesting.

As for the writing itself, it’s pretty damn good. They keep it simple; there’s no unnecessary exposition. It flows really nicely. It’s like a mini-GTA with porn and furries. I mean, naturally, it’s not up to par with GTA, but the engine definitely has the potential.

So, I mentioned portals, magic shit, and there’s going to be a lot of those in this game. The developer really seems to enjoy thinking up fantastical scenarios and mixing them with the characters he’s created. It all flows very nicely. I like the concept of mixing magic with regular shit in a porn game environment. Some of my favorite porn games do the exact same thing. It’s really immersive, because you’re pulling forward both because you can’t wait to whip your dick out, and you really wanna find out what’s happening. It’s like having two really good reasons to keep plowing forward, and you never know which reward is going to be next. Are you going to end up inside a pussy or a portal? Who knows. But they’re both on the horizon. That’s exactly the way I like my mystery in porn games.

Realistic Fur Rendering and Bonus Immersion

Normally I wouldn’t focus on a single part of a game’s graphics so much, but my god, this game’s fur is incredible. – And that’s coming from a non-furry. I couldn’t give a shit about the fetish, but I am in awe over the kind of stuff they’ve managed to get away with on such a low budget. I mean, they’re entirely Patreon funded, and the credits list three people. And as far as I could tell, only two of those three people are directly involved with the graphics.

Right off the bat, they’ve got amazing models. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many 3D furries throughout my career, and these really take the cake. On top of that, when they slapped them into the Unreal engine and set shit up properly, they made them that much more appealing. The fur on these bad boys is incredible. I remember Final Fantasy 15 building a lot of hype over their use of super-realistic hair on certain monsters. Yeah, fuck that. It was pointless, and it tanked performance.

Shades of Elysium – Perfect fur. It’s almost as if they had a dedicated team of developers that only focused on the fur mechanics, but they didn’t. They pulled these successes out of their imagination and hard work, I guess. Ironically, the fur actually looks much better than the hair on the female characters. I think this is hilarious, because the technology that they use to drive the fur was actually invented to render hair, but I guess fur trumps hair in this world. Maybe they use different shampoo for different types of hair; I don’t know.

And lest I only say good things about these graphics, the super realistic fur is only really noticeable during the sex scenes, because you plow bitches like there’s no tomorrow. I just realized that’s the first time I’ve used the phrase “plow bitches” and meant the word bitches quite literally. Anyways, their fur flaps in the wind as you fuck them senseless, but when they’re just standing around, you don’t really notice how much hard work went into that part of the models.

My final compliment about the graphics will have to go to the lighting effects, which go a long-ass way towards making you feel like you’re in another world. I don’t know if this is simulated or if they’re really rendering all of these shadows and dark spots in dark corners of shady bars, but it all looks majestic.

I don’t honestly know how much fun you can have in this game if you’re not a furry, but with all the content they managed to cram into it, I’d be surprised if this game doesn’t receive awards when it’s finally released as a full game. Whether you play it for the faps, the story, or a mix of both, this game is loaded with quality, and I hope that other game developers are inspired by it. We need more porn games made in Unity and Unreal. These graphics really do make a difference, even if the story is to die for. So if you’re a fan or you like what you’ve heard, head over to the developer’s Patreon and drop them a coin or two.